Line #6 YMMV/IllusionOfGaia


1	* [[Awesome/VideoGameLevels Awesome Video Game Level]]: The Sky Garden. A flying city floating high above the Nazca lines, used by the Moon Tribe to travel the world. The two-sided layout creates mind-bending puzzles that will literally turn you upside down as you explore the four separate quadrants of the Garden to find the crystal orbs you need to create a bridge in the central hub leading to the boss, Viper.
2	* ContestedSequel: While generally considered a good game, there's debate over whether or not it's better than its predecessor, ''VideoGame/SoulBlazer.'' The simplification of the RPGElements in particular was highly questioned, and the BlindIdiotTranslation came in for criticism as well.
3	* DifficultySpike: Mu, where the blobs and skeletons of previous levels are suddenly and unexpectedly replaced by rock-hard enemies that can become temporarily invincible, teleporting monsters with homing shots, a water depth puzzle, and a DualBoss. Ankor[sic] Wat is another spike, though mercifully there isn't a boss at the end of it.
4	* EnsembleDarkhorse: Lilly is probably the most popular character, being a cute blue-haired shape-shifting ManicPixieDreamGirl hailing from a hidden magical village. The fact she gives Kara sass for her more selfish moments early in the game helps too.
5	* GoddamnedBoss: The Sand Fanger in the Great Wall is relatively simple but takes a while, being the only boss in the game you ''must'' fight as Will rather than Freedan, meaning it takes 40 hits to kill rather than 20. There are also few opportunities to actually hit it as it moves fast and its only weak point is the head (the only real chance you have to do serious damage is when it pokes its head out of the ground for several seconds to spit a couple of eggs out). On the other hand, the rematch against it in the Tower of Babel, where you fight it as Shadow, who does ''three times'' as much damage as Will, is a complete joke.
6	* SugarWiki/MostWonderfulSound: The series of explosive sound effects when uncovering a hidden path after defeating an enemy or, even better, when defeating a boss as the same sounds play after they go down.
7	* {{Narm}}: Hamlet's [[spoiler: HeroicSacrifice]] would probably have had more pathos if [[spoiler:the air wasn't filling "with the smell of roast Hamlet"...]] Or if [[spoiler:Erik]] hadn't made a bad {{Pun}} about it.
8	* NightmareFuel: Several characters are gruesomely altered or killed outright. The giant room of vermin in Angkor Wat isn't very pleasant, either.
9	** The sequence on the Incan Gold Ship was pretty unsettling. When you first arrive on the ship, there's all of these people who think you're the king for some reason. The ship sets sail into the beautiful blue sea, and you eventually go take a nap. You have a strange dream involving your mother and the approaching comet, and when you wake up, everyone you had previously talked to is a [[DeadAllAlong decayed corpse]]. Then one of your childhood friends gets eaten by a sea monster.
10	** [[spoiler: The Jackal's death. He is set on fire by one of the Pyramid's sound-activated booby traps (which ''you'' triggered) and is slowly burned alive, crawling across the floor towards Kara until his body stops moving. And it's all completely onscreen. For those who played the game when they were young, that scene was very traumatic.]]
11	* RomanticPlotTumor: [[spoiler:Lance and Lilly]], which actually diverts you from the plot to the point that at first this is the only reason you go to the Great Wall. Yes, you were probably predestined to go there or something, since you pick up one of the [[PlotCoupon Mystic Statues]], but you don't know this until you actually get the thing.
12	%% If you came here to re-add Will and Kara, please remember to include context and do example indentation.
13	* SpiritualSuccessor: To ''Soul Blazer'' (to the point where a leaked early translation was titled ''Soul Blazer: Illusion of Gaia''). And ''VideoGame/{{Terranigma}}'' is one to this.
14	* StrangledByTheRedString:
15	** Halfway through the raft sequence, '''bam!''' Will and Kara have a budding romance going. It's baffling since thus far, Kara has mostly just been bossy, whiny, and good at picking up the IdiotBall. To be fair, the raft sequence ''does'' take place over a few weeks (most of which happens offscreen), during which time they have nobody to interact with but each other.
16	** [[spoiler:Lance and Lilly]] in the later half of the game. As mentioned above with the RomanticPlotTumor, their romance is brought up and put into focus out of nowhere. However, like Will and Kara on the raft, the game goes out of its way to emphasize how long the characters are spending traveling together (several weeks at least in the undersea tunnel from Mu to Angel Village), so it's reasonable they could have fallen for each other during time spent interacting offscreen.
17	* ThatOneBoss: Jack and Silvana, the third boss: [[UnholyMatrimony Married vampires]], who have very good coordination and require you to pay close attention to their movements to avoid their attacks. And have a combination attack that is hard to dodge if you're not prepared for it at can knock of roughly 1/3 of your life in one shot. Not to mention the time limit of about 140 seconds to kill both before the bomb beside the tied-up Erik goes off. And the way the dungeon is laid out, you have to backtrack through a huge portion of it if you want to transform into Freedan beforehand (and heaven help you if you try to fight them as ''Will'').
18	* ValuesDissonance: The game includes a depiction of the slave trade, and the writing, especially the iffy translation which was already hamstrung by Nintendo's censorship policies, just isn't equipped to handle it gracefully. Somehow, all of the "laborers" are short Caucasian-looking people with green hair and beards, but when you head to the Natives' Village, which is just south of Ankor Wat, it's populated by people with a darker complexion. You also have to help a slaver catch an escaped "laborer" in order to acquire a Red Jewel.

Context YMMV / IllusionOfGaia